About the composer

Igor Stravinsky

Born: 1882, Oranienbaum, RussiaDied: 1971, New York City

Igor Stravinsky’s biography reads like the history of Western music from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th. He moved away from the late-romantic vocabulary of his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov in his early works, revolutionized music with The Rite of Spring, pioneered neo-classicism in the subsequent decades, and joined the serialists towards the end of his life. Throughout, Stravinsky was at the forefront of the musical avant-garde, first in Russia, then in Paris, and finally in Los Angeles, where he settled in 1940, conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic numerous times.